About Me

Growing up in Oregon, I constantly heard wise words from my mother like "lets recycle that," "you can walk," "don't use too much water," "whole wheat is better than white," "no dessert if you don't eat your vegetables," "dark lettuce is better for you than light," "paper over plastic," "don't leave anything behind" and so much more. Her healthy ways got me into many sports and helped turn me into a record-setting track athlete. In 2006, my mother lost a 3 year battle with Lou Gehrig's Disease; something nobody would have ever expected. That was right around the time I joined the Surfrider Foundation in San Diego and had my first child, whom she never met. Now 10 years have passed since losing my mother, yet volunteering for the Surfrider Foundation, and becoming a mother, I've noticed her words have come through clearer than ever. In addition to personal training and triathlon coaching, I have done some blogging to help our planet, and improve lives. I hope you enjoy my content, and join me in my journey for a cleaner planet and promoting happier, healthier lives!

We live over a mile away, and there is no bus, so for now, our method of travel is scooters. We would prefer riding bikes, but there's a district-wide ban of bicycles for kids under 4th grade. (Scooters are not mentioned in the rules.;) Of course I am horribly opposed to the rule, and working with many other parents to see how we can change this policy.

So lets compare riding bikes to driving a car:

Biking: Free (once you have a bike), burns calories instead of gas, helps kids wake up and be alert for class, prevents obesity, when accompanied by a parent, it's an excellent opportunity to learn rules of the road, traffic signs, right vs left (if you say we stay to the right with our bikes, kids associate that side with R), promotes a lifelong lesson of healthy and money-saving travel

Driving: Kids and parents are at rest, parents burn gas instead of calories, vehicles pollute the environment, vehicles cause traffic congestion around schools, excess of vehicles make crossing the street at the school more dangerous (even for those who rode in a car because parking gets backed up 1/2 mile or more), kids aren't as alert when they get to the classroom

If you search the web, you'll see there are many bike bans out there, and many fighting it. It may actually be more of a liability to have a bike ban than to allow bikes! In a court of law, it takes away parents Constitutional Rights to raise children the way they want, forcing them to either walk or waste money driving. The good news is, some schools promote riding bikes with award systems! What if all schools did this? Think of the affect it would have on our country's obesity epidemic?

If you bike, walk, roll or travel in any other way than driving, we'd love to know! Thank you for helping the environment!!